Double Up! 25 Ways to get 25 Students (Part IV)

If you’ve been following this entire series, we asked key instructors to share how they got 25+ students into their courses in 30 days. The result is a resource we’ve rolled out this month in parts: 25 Ways to Get 25 Students. Below is Part IV, the final segment, of this series.

“This course was published last November. I have a mailing list (4000 subscribers approximately), and I sent an email promoting my other courses where I included (at the end) a free code for my Photoshop course. Although initially it was not a free course, I decided to make it free because I think it’s a technique for getting subscribers in other courses.”

Brenda T. (enrolled 53 students in June 2013)

“I first published my course a couple of months ago… Early in the month I sent an email out to my clients and told them the price point of the course was going to be over $100 when it was complete, but if they promised to give me feedback they could get in for only $8. When I found out about the [Grow the Pie Instructor Promotion on Udemy] contest, I wrote a piece on Reddit and listed it under Free Stuff with a coupon reducing the cost to free offering the same explanation.

“I don’t think anyone should worry about giving a way a few hundred spots to a course. Having those high numbers in your course is a way of offering social proof to those still considering making the purchase. Offering a free or significant discount to a short course with the promise to add more is a great way to make sure you have that social proof when you are ready to offer it at a higher dollar. Just don’t take too long to get it done!”

Michael M. (enrolled 33 students in June 2013)

His course was published in March 2013. Michael delivered a talk at a meetup/user group and gave away coupons for his course.

Dianne A. (enrolled 159 students in June 2013)

Dianne published her course in March 2013.

“I submitted a coupon link on Redditearly on and found that there was not a lot of interest. It wasn’t until I spent more time on Reddit on forums within my industry (HR) during the month of June that I saw a real increase in the use of my coupons. I spent several days a week on the forums, providing advice for people struggling with related issues.

“My advice is to give of your time and expertise first so that others can see that you are an expert in your field, and, that you are actually interested in helping others by responding to questions.

“Some other things I’ve done over the past few months:

Added a link to my course to the signature line in all of my emails

Reached out to develop partnerships with others

Write posts for my HR/Careers blog that includes a link to my course in the signature line

Created ad banners on my website that feature the course in a prominent way

I posted free coupons on Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, in LinkedIn groups, on Slickdeals, and OzBargain. I cut off most of the free coupons once my student number hit 700. My course is about Stand Up Comedy, and I had a bunch of comedians repost it on Facebook.

Eric C. (enrolled 167 students in May 2013)

I published my course in May 2013 and was able to attract about 12 students early on. Two where paid and the other 10 my friends and colleagues I invited to the course for free using an instructor coupon.

In June, I received one of your [Instructor Promotion] emails that mentioned one instructor had found success posting coupon codes to Reddit and OZBargain to attract some free students. I didn’t find much success on Reddit for my niche, but on OZBargain things were different. I was able to attract 500 new students in 48 hours to my course as free students. The number would have been higher, but I only created 500 coupons.

Here’s what I did. I simply created an account on OZBargain and posted my course with a free coupon code. What ended up skyrocketing the visibility and response to my offer was that it was reposted by the following user on OZBargain: WNK (here is a link to their profile: http://www.ozbargain.com.au/user/100565).

You will see that there are 5 courses listed, and mine was the top one in the post. It would seem that this user is actively seeking to promote any free courses on Udemy. They also have quite a following on OZBargain and get tons of user feedback. When I saw the course signups come flooding in, I went to the OZBargain website and noticed that the post WNK had created was featured right on the home page!

If I were to run another promotion, I would post it to OZBargain as before and do what I could to notify WNK of my offer in hopes to have my course featured in an upcoming posting.”

Lindsay T. (enrolled 71 students in June 2013)

Published course June 25, 2013

“How did I drive these new students to my course? By being social. When I first started working on my videos:

I joined the Udemy Studio group on Facebook. When I released my first course, I offered a free coupon to instructors and asked for feedback. Everyone was super nice and helpful. Being social with a targeted market is important as well. Once you define your audience, and find them, you can share your course with them.

I also created coupons for my course on many coupon sites such as Retailmenot.com, but have not had near as many students come in from the coupons as I have had from the social networking sites.”

Chris B. (enrolled 542 students in June 2013)

Chris published his first Udemy course January 2012 and is currently a Udemy Bestseller.

“I occasionally write practice exam questions and post them on my blog. I put the answers on the same post, and in the middle of the Q & A section, I write something like, ‘Before we get to the answers, here’s an important message for you!’ That way I know people are at least going to scan past the ad to get to the answers. I also use posts like this one: